Tag: comments plugin

How is tech going to change and grow in near future and what will the future of tech look like in ten or twenty years? According to Jeff Pulver, VOIP expert, the future will look a lot more like Star Trek then we might expect. In a recent talk he described typing and interacting with apps the way we do in 2017 as something that will soon become obsolete. So what will our digital interactions look like? Well, as VR and AR gain technological prowess and voice analytics improve; the future looks set to look like a lot like science fiction. If you’ve watched Star Trek then you are familiar with the concept of a ship that works primarily through voice commands and a “holodeck” where crewmembers have immersive VR experiences. We might not be ready for intergalactic space flight quite yet, but the digital interactions are already moving in this direction.

Many of the gadgets seen on episodes of Star Trek already exist. We already have tablet computers, universal translator apps and more. But the future looks set to combine many of today’s emerging technologies for a more intuitive and interactive digital experience. Gesture technology and voice technology point the way towards control decks and control hubs that can be commanded much as the Captains of the Enterprise commanded theirs. And if it sounds like nothing but science fiction to you, just check out RoomE’s hi-tech voice and motion controls. Today this kind of control panel is a one off, lab-based experiment, but soon enough we can expect to see these kinds of digital interfaces in our homes and workplaces.

There are so many ways to advertise a business digitally. From sponsored content to banner ads, native advertising and social media campaigns, businesses’ biggest challenge is figuring out which channels are best and how to target users through them in the most effective way. In a world that is crowded with digital advertising and content options, UGC stands out as something far more organic and authentic. Rather than “hearing” the voice of a brand explain why a service or product is best, UGC is much closer to receiving a personal recommendation from a friend or a relative, and this feeling of UGC being both personal and authentic makes it a very powerful tool to increase sales.

You probably know about big data. It has been heralded as a game-changing tool and has already transformed many aspects of many industries. According to Forbes, big data is a collection of data from traditional and digital sources inside and outside your company that represents a source for ongoing discovery and analysis. There are different types of big data and it’s not just the realms of the digital world that count – offline interactions happening in large volumes also count. Forbes splits the field into 2 major areas – unstructured and multi-structured data. The former cannot easily be organized or interpreted by algorithms or databases (think social media posts), and the latter refers to interactions between people and machines (a wide range of interactions including web apps and social networks). But what does all this mean for advertising?

With more data at our disposal and better ways of storing and analyzing what we have, big data looks set to be a game changer for advertising. So what is changing? Well it’s not necessarily how we advertise that will change, but rather the insights informing advertising decisions will be stronger and smarter. Big data can help us get better at understanding customers. This means better honing messages with predictive analytics and gaining new insights on the way customers interact with advertising. Big data isn’t the next generation of advertising, but rather a tool that can help us do things better.

It’s 2017 and we are being constantly bombarded by ads. We see a pop up on every page we visit, there are banner ads on the sides of the blogs we read. When we log onto social media a large proportion of what we see is sponsored, and when we search Google the first few results are always advertisements. At a certain point we start to block out the advertising “noise”. There’s too much of it and a lot of it just isn’t relevant to our lives.

In recent years, ad campaigns have focused on targeting the “right” segment of users. Using this logic, the total group of potential customers of any business is split up into different segments often based on demographic or psychographic qualities. Take Instagram for example. If you want to create a campaign you can pick out your target segment by choosing their age, gender, location and up to 10 interests. On Facebook you can go into even greater depth in terms of interests but the overall logic is the same. Once a segment is chosen, material is targeted specifically towards them. For example if you are a sports brand with a segment of 18-40 year olds based in Manhattan with an interest in sport you can send them ads about a new activewear line for young people that is about to launch in New York. And though this is much more effective than just blanket targeting everyone with ads, but it doesn’t give us the full picture about our customers.

If you have your own blog then you know there are a thousand and one things to worry about. Are you marketing it correctly? Are you using the right channels to advertise? Are your posts interesting and relevant? Is your design the best it can be? After a while a blog can seem like a pretty long checklist of items that are difficult to keep track of. And things can get pretty expensive, pretty quickly. Blog and web design does not come cheap, nor do new logos, paid marketing campaigns or the like. But the good news is, there are lots of simple things you can do that won’t cost you a penny and will help you radically improve your blog.

According to the New York Times, 95% of blogs fail. To avoid becoming part of this statistic, focus on what really matters – growing your readership. There is sadly no tried and tested formula to magically grow from 0 to 1 million but there are some straightforward (and free) things you can do. Publishing more content is one proven way to grow your readership. Keeping your writing unique and high quality is essential (so you can’t simply increase the frequency but reduce the quality). Starting to sound expensive? Not necessarily. One tip for generating more content is to keep track of what inspires you. Get a notebook or an app you like and write down every inspiring article, quote or thought you have. Keeping these ideas organized and within reach at all times is a great way to convert a higher proportion of your good ideas to awesome content. Another way to increase the frequency of content (for free) is to feature guest bloggers. And this is something that works both ways – you can feature other bloggers on your site, and send your own articles to other blogging sites for even greater exposure.

Have a clear call to action

Blogs aren’t all about the content. One of the best ways to grow a readership is to actively engage with your readers and work to build an online community. One great way to do this is to create clear calls to action so people don’t just read and leave. Decide how you want to engage with your users; for example through a comments section, through an online poll or by inviting guest submission, and make it crystal clear to readers that this is how they can take an active part in your blog. If your call to action is simply requesting social media shares, make sure it is easy and obvious for readers to do so.

Make your comments amazing

We all know comments are important. They generate a constant stream of user content. Every comment is unique and free. Best of all, it is much easier to gain user generated content then actively manage a new advertising campaign or double your blog output. Simply put, high-quality user-generated content is low hanging fruit and you should focus on how to leverage it. So, how can you significantly improve your comments? For starters, if you are currently using the native comments platform on your blog – there is a better way. Today there are a whole host of unique commenting platforms that can radically transform the way you interact with users. One of the best ways to do this is to go beyond text. For a long time comments have been almost exclusively text-based (apart from the occasional emoji or meme) but there is a better way. Voice, image and video commenting can help increase user engagement and make your blog stand out. Voice in particular is a great way to create a much more personal interaction, and best of all you can do it without spending a single dollar.

Heyoya is a game-changing comments and reviews platform that brings voice to e-publishers and e-stores, improving sales and user engagement by allowing readers to express themselves beyond the medium of text. Heyoya’s new Receiver plan allows for quick and easy below-the-fold monetization through native advertising. Heyoya is a game changer for websites and is proven to increase brand affinity and the quality of user-generated content.

Building a solid reputation is hard. There is no quick way or easy recipe to do it and every business is different. Building up a good reputation takes time and hard work, yet losing or destroying one can basically happen over night (just think of the recent United fiasco). In fact, the whole concept of a reputation is pretty amorphous. Ultimately it is not something you as a business can fully shape or control, and often the process of influencing is referred to as “reputation management” since at the end of the day it is about altering or managing other people’s perceptions.

The other issue with reputation is that it is intangible and therefore extremely difficult to measure. In fact, a US survey found that 95% of CEOs think reputation is incredibly important but only 19% have a system in place to measure it. Ultimately today’s market and market value are made up of a range of intangible things like reputation and other qualities (just think of brand equity or intellectual capital). So what can you do to nurture and maintain vulnerable assets like reputation and make sure they leave your business stronger?

Source: http://www.picserver.org/r/

Tap into top influencers

However good you are and however good you say you are, there is a limit to how far your product and marketing can go alone. At some point you need the help of other people, and who better than influencers in your target market who can not only help you reach a wider customer base but also build up your reputation. One way influencers can do this is through the halo effect. The halo effect is essentially when the positive attributes or qualities of one thing rub off onto another thing. On the business level this means that if an edgy and outspoken celebrity influencer starts saying great things about your brand, your brand may gain a reputation of being edgy and outspoken. This is why it is so important to pick the right influencers. The best are those that strongly display the core brand values of your business.

So how can you make the most of your reviews? For starters – engage! It’s all well and good collecting reviews of your organization and displaying them on your webpage or online store. Yes, they are a tool that can help your business build a reputation. However, reviews are even more effective when they become dynamic. If someone says something great about your business, answer them – thank them, comment on the item they purchased. A great way to improve engagement even further and encourage reviews is to try different forms of media. Tools like video and voice offer an even more compelling story than a text-based 5-star review. Hearing the voice of a satisfied customer singing your praises is a great way to grow a strong reputation and expand your customer base.

Heyoya is a game-changing comments and reviews platform that brings voice to e-publishers and e-stores, improving sales and user engagement by allowing readers to express themselves beyond the medium of text. Heyoya’s new Receiver plan allows for quick and easy below-the-fold monetization through native advertising. Heyoya is a game changer for websites and is proven to increase brand affinity and the quality of user-generated content.

When it comes to marketing, one of the most challenging tasks is creating content that is compelling, striking and unique. The right content is the difference between being ignored and generating valuable leads. Compelling content can create brand legitimacy, increase buzz and even (if you are very lucky) go viral. Yet the internet is adrift which meaningless and mediocre content, and clickbait is everywhere. However, savvy marketers are pushing forward and innovating in new ways. So what can we expect for the future of content?

Source: https://pixabay.com/en/photos/content/

Bitesize content

As attention spans shrink and social media is increasingly packed full of blogs, articles and more, a new content trend emerges – “micro” or “bitsize” content. Content becomes shorter but more engaging and compelling. Instead of articles think engaging graphics and minimal copy. Instead of long videos think micro-videos and GIFs. This type of content is easy to consume and makes customers convert even faster. And the truth is people don’t need that much time to make up their mind about a brand or concept. The concept of thin-slicing shows that people can make accurate decision surprisingly fast. In the future, it will be better to create short compelling content than to lose people’s attention with something long and irrelevant.

Content gets even more personal

It has never been more important to curate your content for specific audiences. The age of mass marketing where you would blanket all your users with the same generic campaign about how great your product is, is over. The future is about understanding your users, gaining as much data as possible and focusing on content that means something to them. Tracking user analytics allows you to understand the patterns and behavior of your user in greater depth and provides key insights. Converting these insights into actionable content means creating something of a much higher quality that your users will be far more likely to engage with.

Interactive marketing

As content struggles to find its niche and gain uniqueness, it’s likely that interactive marketing will grow in popularity. This is a great way for users to feel like they are part of your content and not just a passive force consuming what your brand puts out there. A few great ways to make content more interactive include gamifying aspects of it, adding interactive video tours, creating a competition or giveaway or simply animating parts of your brand. Here are some great examples of interactive marketing if you are looking for inspiration.

User-generated content gains popularity

User-generated content (UGC) is already hugely important, but it looks set to gain further traction in the future. Ultimately there is nothing more powerful than seeing other users singing the praises of a brand. Reading great reviews or happy commenters is so much more convincing than reading retargeting campaigns, mailers or sponsored social media content. A great way to make user-generated content even more powerful is to vary the types of media used. Video and GIFs are gaining popularity with a number of video based review sites. However, a big trend set to take things forward is audio UGC. With the rise of smart assistants, AI and even more accurate voice recognition, people are doing more through voice and less through text. One way to keep content ahead of the trend is to add an audio option for it as well.

Heyoya is a game-changing comments and reviews platform that brings voice to e-publishers and e-stores, improving sales and user engagement by allowing readers to express themselves beyond the medium of text. Heyoya’s new Receiver plan allows for quick and easy below-the-fold monetization through native advertising. Heyoya is a game changer for websites and is proven to increase brand affinity and the quality of user-generated content.

It’s 2017 and by now everyone who is anyone knows that user-generated content is important. If you have a blog, a website or an online store, you are probably pretty focused on getting good reviews, replying to customer feedback and making sure you engage with your customers (and if you aren’t then its time you start!). But while UGC is a clear backbone to any modern day business it is also a tool that continues to change and evolve alongside the digital landscape. So what’s next for UGC?

Time to own UGC?

Today the majority of UGC is owned by social media networks. This means while brands are winning short term with hashtag campaigns or viral content, the social media networks like SnapChat and Twitter are the real winners. The future is likely to change this and delves deeper into UGC – meaning companies will spend more time and resources capturing metadata and leveraging UGC beyond individual short terms campaigns and into the realms of long-term meaningful customer relationships.

If UGC is a huge trend already, it looks set to grow even bigger and hasn’t even come close to its peak. We can be sure that brands will continue to invest efforts in encouraging, nurturing and fostering the right kind of UGC (because unlike other marketing channels you can’t completely control it unless you fake it and that basically destroys its nature). UGC is an organic concept that needs to be grown in the right ways and in the right environment. But once you succeed in growing it, how do you harvest what you have? In order for brands to really harness the amount of UGC they need to stand out, it looks likely that aggregation apps and platforms will gain popularity. Collecting the right UGC is an extremely powerful marketing tool.

UGC moves to other mediums

For a long time UGC has been almost exclusively focused on text. Though it has branched out into the worlds of video and images, there is still a long way to go. The future looks set to take UGC into totally new territory like VR. So how can UGC go together with virtual reality? Well, the future will be increasingly about a co-experiential approach where UGC and interactions are encouraged, shared across and leveraged through different mediums. As content moves over to VR and AR so do user interactions (or at least some of them).

But if VR-based UGC still seems a long way off there are more approachable technologies that are already available to give your business the kick it needs. UGC can be the most mundane thing in the world, but it can also be your biggest asset. Moving away from text to new technologies like voice tech can help to increase user engagement and create an environment of interactions that is more personal, more meaningful and easier to access than simply sitting and typing out a really long comment or message.

Heyoya is a game-changing comments and reviews platform that brings voice to e-publishers and e-stores, improving sales and user engagement by allowing readers to express themselves beyond the medium of text. Heyoya’s new Receiver plan allows for quick and easy below-the-fold monetization. Heyoya is a game changer for websites and is proven to increase brand affinity and the quality of user-generated content.

Analytics have always been a crucial channel for understanding customer behavior and learning to do things better. But new trends show an increased focus on real-time high-level analytics. So what does this mean? Basically mapping and understanding different customer actions and profiles on a micro as well as the macro level is becoming more important. It’s not enough just to have data, the data needs to happen now and in a way that can be easily transformed into actionable items to constantly improve customers’ UX of your e-commerce store. There needs to be data on every conversion point and a way of following each and every path a customer can take.

A move towards Asia

For a long time, the focus has been on the US. It is a huge, growing and central market to e-commerce. However, that doesn’t mean it will be the place to focus energies forever. Right now the US market is still growing, however, it is reaching a saturation point, which means we are likely to see a plateau in the market soon. So what’s next for e-commerce? Well, the Asian market is beginning to boom, and in particular, China. So what does that mean for e-commerce store owners? Well, now is a good time to go global and begin targeting the Asian market (or at least begin thinking about it). Of course, this isn’t a strategy that will work for everyone since a plateauing US market doesn’t mean a bad market. Everything depends on your business and your customers. And while there is no need for physical infrastructure when it comes to expanding operations, there are a variety of other challenges (cultural, languages and more).

The worlds of social media and commerce are intersecting. With places like Facebook Marketplace, buying online doesn’t even mean logging out of social media or browsing specific websites or apps. But this trend means more than just marketplaces on social media; it is a move towards e-commerce marketplaces or stores inside of nested social media sites. The good news is that this trend makes it even easier to leverage social media brand ambassadors and user-generated content.

Online reviews move to other mediums

For a long time online reviews have been crucial to not only promoting online businesses, but to gaining the basic trust needed to bring customers to a store and complete a purchase. While they are gaining volume, popularity and trust, the medium of reviews is only now beginning to widen. At the beginning reviews were all about text, but today you can move online comments to much more personal and interactive mediums like video, gifs and even voice to keep customers engaged and shopping for longer.

Heyoya is a game-changing comments and reviews platform that brings voice to e-publishers and e-stores, improving sales and user engagement by allowing readers to express themselves beyond the medium of text. Heyoya’s new Receiver plan allows for quick and easy below-the-fold monetization. Heyoya is a game changer for websites and is proven to increase brand affinity and the quality of user-generated content.

Customer reviews are not just static data sat on a web page. They are a dynamic way to interact and engage with customers and the platform you use to do this on is crucial. The right reviewing platform lets you collect reviews, and engage with your customers, understand data and trends, and ultimately turn reviews into two important tools. The first is actionable items that can be improved (and this often comes from negative reviews), the second is positive brand data that can be leveraged in campaigns throughout digital media channels. A good reviewing platform also helps filter out spam and irrelevant content so that you can spend your time focusing on key insights.

The transparency economy

Accenture refers to our digital age as the transparency economy where consumers expect to have the full information from manufacturers, retailers, providers, especially what other people think. Accenture also refers to reviews as a method of “unifying and amplifying the voice of the consumer”. Reviews are therefore not one offs but a type of content that builds trust through transparency and can be aggregated and used strategically. More than this, reviews are not just an add-on to an online store or a purchasing experience, the reviews themselves have become embedded in the user experience and are a key tool for gaining data (both for business owners and for potential customers).

A shift in balance

According to Deloitte, reviews are a powerful tool, which has actually shifted the power balance of the entire sales process. The proliferation of easy to access online stores has created a tyranny of choice that leads customers to rely heavily on reviews, price comparisons, and rankings. It has created disruption in the entire way we purchase and empowered customers with both access and information. To get ahead of the trend and make smart business decisions, companies must focus on creating a coherent customer journey through all the different touch points with their business. This means reviews are not an isolated factor but one part of a unified “sales story”.

Diversifying media

For so long reviews and the insights we have gleaned from them have come through text and text-based analytics. However, we know that using other forms of media (like images, video and voice) improves customer engagement, differentiates products and really helps a business to stand out from the crowd. With new technologies available, now is the time to migrate to areas like voice. Voice is a much more personal mode of communication and can be used to increase customer interactions, conversions and ultimately improve sales.

Heyoya is a game-changing comments and reviews platform that brings voice to e-publishers and e-stores, improving sales and user engagement by allowing readers to express themselves beyond the medium of text. Heyoya’s new Receiver plan allows for quick and easy below-the-fold monetization. Heyoya is a game changer for websites and is proven to increase brand affinity and the quality of user-generated content.